Ngoma

Ngoma,in Bantu, means drum, song, performance, and healing cult or association. A widespread form of ritual healing in Central and Southern Africa,ngomais fully investigated here for the first time and interpreted in a contemporary context. John Janzen's daring study incorporates drumming and spirit possession into a broader, institutional profile that emphasizes the varieties of knowledge and social forms and also the common elements of "doingngoma." Drawing on his recent field research in Kinshasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Mbabane, and Capetown, Janzen reveals howngomatranscends national and social boundaries. Spoken and sung discourses about affliction, extended counseling, reorientation of the self or household, and the creation of networks that link the afflicted, their kin, and their healers are all central tongoma--and familiar to Western self-help institutions as well. Students of African healing and also those interested in the comparative and historical study of medicine, religion, and music will findNgomaa valuable and thought-provoking book.

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Preface
Introduction	p. 1
Settings and Samples in African Cults of Affliction	p. 10
The "Grands Rites" of Kinshasa	p. 11
Ngoma on the Swahili Coast	p. 20
Sangoma: Divining the Stresses of Rapid Industrialization in North Nguni Society	p. 35
The Amagqira: Surviving the Townships of South Africa	p. 50
Identifying Ngoma: Historical and Comparative Perspectives	p. 57
The Bantu Conundrum	p. 58
The Lexicon of a Classical Sub-Saharan Therapeutics	p. 63
Instruments of Ritual Healing as a Nonverbal Cognate Set	p. 69
Social and Political Variables of a Complex Institution	p. 74
Scholarly Blinders and the Ontology of a Unique Institution	p. 80
Core Features in Ngoma Therapy	p. 85
Sickness and Therapeutic Initiation as a Phased Rite of Passage	p. 87
The Diagnosis of Misfortune	p. 90
Nosology and Spirit Fields	p. 94
The Course through the White	p. 101
Sacrifice and Exchange	p. 104
The Sufferer Becomes the Healer	p. 105
Doing Ngoma: The Texture of Personal Transformation	p. 108
Text and Texture in African Healing	p. 109
"Doing Ngoma": The Core Ritual Unit	p. 110
Common Songs and Personal Song in Ngoma Narrative Tradition	p. 118
The Structure of Ngoma Therapeutic Communication	p. 122
Of Music and Ritual in Ngoma	p. 126
How Ngoma Works: Of Codes and Consciousness	p. 130
Personal Experience and Cultural Reality	p. 131
Spirit Logic and Therapeutic Discourse	p. 133
From Spirit to Song-Dance: Articulating Metaphors of Difficult Experience	p. 145
Ngoma and Specialized Knowledge	p. 149
Now Ngoma Works: The Social Reproduction of Health	p. 153
Health and Health Indicators	p. 154
The Social Reproduction of Health	p. 156
Profiles of Ngoma Social Reproduction	p. 159
Conclusion	p. 173
Appendix A: Partial Listing of Guthrie's Inventory of Bantu Languages	p. 181
Appendix B: Distributions of Terms in Bantu Languages Pertaining to Therapeutic Concepts and Actions	p. 189
Appendix C: Instrumentation Accompanying Healing Rituals in Central and Southern Africa	p. 209
Notes	p. 215
Bibliography	p. 219
Index	p. 235
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

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